Triptychs
Photographs exist mainly as single frames, within an imposed rectangular boundary. Each frame is both a fragment and a whole. What exists within that defining space becomes a world unto itself, forever detached from its surroundings. Photographs on film are divided by frame lines and ordered in chronological sequence. A contact sheet reveals the negatives as a page of positives—the film’s progression in strips of five or six images.
Much of what the photographer grapples with is containment—how do we inject the single frame with enough energy to give it voice, to speak aesthetically and/or narratively? What elements must align for the photograph to achieve maximum expression within that selected moment?
Can we interpret several moments simultaneously?
For these Triptychs, I created an enlarging format that allots for three 35mm film frames to be printed together within the format of two frames. A central image is flanked by two partial frames. Their chronology is intact as the three shots are from contiguous negatives, in their original sequence. The single frame is extended into a larger time signature as the successive images reflect a multiplicity of moments: a whole—bound within its rectangular capsule, and fragments of the before and after.
All of the Triptychs were determined by fate, as the shots were not photographed with sequential printing in mind. The connections are accidental. As I scrutinized thousands of images on contact sheets, only eighteen suitable trios emerged. My criterion was that an aesthetic (and possibly a contextual) relationship would be generated between the often disparate neighboring images—that the pieces coalesce into a larger whole. The dividing frame lines transform into connecting lines, junctures where frames interact. Orientation may shift from horizontal to vertical and subject matter may be closely related or vary widely.
The Triptychs were exhibited in Burlington, Vermont's Gallery 215 as "Silver Hallides" in April, 2009. The silver gelatin prints are toned in selenium, and are 8x20 inches in size.